Irishmen not flinching at prospect of hair removal

With notably hairless role models such as Colin Farrell and Daniel Craig blazing a trail, increasing numbers of Irishmen are heading to their local grooming salon for a little waxing.
One salon owner told the Irish Examiner newspaper that he is seeing up to 30 male clients a week, with from March until September the peak time, as men seek to get themselves buffed up in preparation for their holidays.
"Back, shoulders, chest and eyebrows are the most popular areas," said Gavan Glynn, whose salon is in Ranelagh, just south of Dublin.And one of the country's psychologists has no doubts as to where the influence for men to go hairless comes from.
If you look at any of the ads aimed at men nowadays, there isnt a single chest hair in sight, says Owen Connolly, consultant psychologist at Connolly Counselling Centre in Stillorgan.
But Dr Ken Harland, co-director of the Centre for Young Mens Studies at University of Ulster, is keen to emphasise that this does not mark a loss of masculine ideals.
"This renegotiation of masculinity allows young men to present themselves in a way that may not have been acceptable in the past, rather than conform to some outdated notion of masculinity, he said.